


Give Your Heart a Break

by monimala



Series: Like a Love Song [2]
Category: The Young and the Restless
Genre: Age Difference, F/M, Forbidden Love, Non-Canon Relationship, Older Man/Younger Woman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 21:32:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15566751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monimala/pseuds/monimala
Summary: Picks up a month or so after the events ofThe Shape Of Youand shortly after Hilary's death. So, circa first week of August 2018.Mattie’s tired of boundaries. Of rules. Of people telling her what to do.





	Give Your Heart a Break

The distance shouldn’t hurt her feelings. It makes sense. Kyle Abbott is a grown man with a high-powered job. Responsibilities. Peers in his own age group. And after his dad finds out he’s not a Chancellor and the paternity quest stalls, they kind of have nothing to talk about. So, of course, he’s going to pull away from her. Of course he's going to go back to his regular life. Too bad _she_ can’t seem to pull away from _him_.

Even with her summer classes at GCU and volunteering at the local DNC, she can’t get Kyle out of her head. Canvassing for the midterms hasn’t stopped her from canvassing his midriff with her eyes every time she sees him at the pool. It’s almost criminal how built he is—like some Renaissance artist carved him from stone. She wonders how it would feel to touch him. Would his skin be warm or cool under her fingertips? Hard or soft? Would he welcome it or push her back in a panic?

It’s stupid. She knows that. Stupid to wonder. Stupid to be hurt. She’s not some pathetic little hothouse flower withering on the vine because a guy ghosted her. She’s 17. She has a life. He’s 27. _He_ has a life. And, from what Mattie has seen lately, it also seems like he and Summer Newman have His  & Hers lounge chairs on the roof deck. Summer, who looks amazing in her teeny-tiny bikinis. They’re like Ken and Barbie, perfectly sculpted people and a perfectly sculpted pair.

But he’s so _careful_ not to look at Mattie when she’s there, too. It would be one thing if he’d just forgotten about her. If he shrugged off those weeks of them running into each other all the time as some weird fluke. But it’s not that. It’s _deliberate_. He looks past her. Beyond her. With fixed, blank, politeness. He doesn’t even come into the coffeehouse anymore—which upsets her on multiple levels, including the one where he should be supporting a local business instead of becoming a soulless shill for an Evil Empire like Starbucks.

_“I’m not good, Matilda. But I want to get there. Maybe, someday, I’ll get there.”_

She should’ve realized that day that what he really meant was “goodbye.” That the way he touched her face in that moment was as accidental as his ignoring her now is on purpose.

Kyle Abbott just cannot be around her…and she can’t stop looking for him every time she enters a crowded room. 

***

Mattie Ashby’s going to be the death of him. Without even doing anything. Just her existing is killing him slowly. He can _feel_ her. At the edge of his awareness, on the periphery of his vision. The girl on the other side of the pool, bent over her e-reader—because, of course, she can’t go anywhere without at least one book. _Stop it, Kyle_. _You swore you were going to be better._ And he _was_ better for a few weeks. He quit going to Crimson Lights. He walked the other way whenever he saw her anywhere else. But he’s slipping.

The effort of not-looking is like holding his breath. His blood is rushing against his eardrums, his pulse rapid. He’s actually a little lightheaded. It’s ridiculous. Irrational. You can’t _die_ from not having someone. But try telling his body that. Try telling his _brain_ that.  

He actually misses her. Someone who was barely in his life, an acquaintance, and yet one of the few people he knows who can cut through all the bullshit and tell him the truth. _“Blood doesn’t make a family. DNA isn’t everything.”_ But it’s not just about wishing for her friendship back. He’s not that noble, not that pure of intention. He’s self-aware enough to realize that the _need_ clawing inside of him, restricting the airflow to his lungs, is as much about lust as it is about like.

He’s woken up hard so many times in the past month, shaking off fantasies he has no business having. He’s tried to make them about Summer. ‘Cause God knows, his ex has a banging body. And he taught her everything she knows about sucking dick. He’s even tried to pull in Mariah. Imagining all of that fire-red hair trailing across his chest. But it’s never them for long. Or never them _alone_. Mattie’s staked out a piece of his sexual subconscious. A space where she cuts him a thousand times with her tart sarcasm and then soothes the stings with her tongue. Where she demands he see to _her_ pleasure before teaching her how to stoke his.

 _Fuck_. Kyle groans, shifting on the lounge chair and dropping a sales report over the tent in his shorts. Yeah, he’s in trouble. Not looking, not talking, not acknowledging Matilda’s existence…it’s all such a lie. Because even now, he knows exactly what she’s wearing. Black and white polka dots. One of those modest bikinis with a sweetheart neckline from the Fenmore’s Juniors’ department. Instead of skimpy bottoms, it has a skirt that hits at mid-thigh. On paper, it’s part of the cross-promotion project with Jabot. On her, it might as well be lingerie. She looks amazing. Like sweetness with the secret promise of sin…every single sin he’s trying to stop himself from committing.

When this inevitably kills him, he’s definitely going to hell. 

***

She shouldn’t walk over to him. He’s made the boundaries clear, after all. But Mattie’s tired of boundaries. Of rules. Of people telling her what to do. Hilary and her baby with Uncle Devon are dead. Life is _so_ short. And it’s dumb that Kyle keeps pretending they’re strangers. They’re _not_ strangers. So she’s up and out of her seat, crossing the GCAC roof deck, before she can second-guess herself. Standing in front of his beach chair before she can talk herself out of it.    

“Hey.” She’s proud of herself for the strength of that one syllable. Especially while faced with Kyle in all his Birthday Suit by Jabot glory. His bare chest. His arms. He even has attractive calves—something she’s never thought about the boys at Walnut Grove. It was much easier to talk to him, to blow through his cocky and privileged bullshit, when he was fully dressed. But she stands her ground. Meets his shocked blue eyes.

“Mattie?! What are you doing here?”

“Working on my tan. Obviously.” The snark is automatic…but so is the tilt of his gaze moving down her body. He probably doesn’t even realize he’s checking her out—or he does and would never admit to it. She feels it, though—like a sunburn—for long seconds after his eyes have snapped back to hers.  

He sits up, placing one foot flat on the ground and then the other. The papers he was reading slide off his lap. He’s wearing shorts and nothing else. Very snug shorts. Mattie tries to be politer than him. Tries not to look down. If there’s one thing she’s learned from being surrounded by Lacrosse players and Cross-Country guys for half her life, it’s that crotches are like the Bermuda Triangle. One wrong turn and you’re lost forever.

“Mattie.” Kyle says her name again. Her nickname—which he never seemed to bother with before. And there’s a condescending edge to it, chiding her for her attitude. Adult to child, not flirtatious fuckboy to potential mark. “Don’t you have friends your own age?”

 _Seriously?_ The laugh bursts out of her. Didn’t she ask _him_ the very same thing once? “Why are you being like this, Kyle?” she demands. “This is ridiculous!”   

“Being like what?” He keeps up the act. Unconcerned bro. Too cool for her. His gaze doesn’t drop again. His eyes stay on her face, almost too steady. Like he’s trying not to give anything away. Her dad spent most of 2017 lying. She’s become a pro at recognizing the signs. “I’ve been busy. Things have come up at work. I don’t have time to hang out anymore.”

Considering he’s sitting by the pool right now with a fruity cocktail on the table beside him, this is a _blatant_ lie—but Kyle’s warming to his narrative, to his excuses. “It’s really sweet that you came up to me today to say hi. I appreciate it. But I think I may have given you the wrong impression all those weeks ago…and I completely understand if you think you have a crush on me or something. But, Mattie, it just—”

 _Oh, hell, no_. She cuts him off with a sharp shake of her head. “No. Don't you dare tell me I'm wrong for feeling this way. Or too young. Or that this is all on me somehow and you had no part of it.” She's already been to this rodeo. Held Shauna's hand while she cried. Assured Charlie everything's okay. Yelled at her mom for slut-shaming. _“You ran off and got married when you were my age. AND divorced. All before you married Dad. How can you judge Shauna for wanting to be with Charlie?”_ She's not going to take hypocrisy from Kyle, too. “ _You_ sought me out all those times,” she reminds him. “And I’ve seen the way you look at me.”

Mr. Too Cool blinks, his mask wavering. “H-how exactly do I look at you?” He swallows. She watches the motion of his throat. His cheeks are tinged pink. And not from too much time in the sun. At some point during this horrifically awkward conversation, he interlaced his hands. They hang between his knees, the knuckles white with tension. He’s in no way as good a liar as her father. Too many tells. 

“Aren't you a Harvard MBA? So busy and so smart? I'm pretty sure you know _exactly_ how you look at me.” Mattie doesn't know what power moves her to crowd him, but she does it. Walking right into his bent knees. “You flirted with me the day we met. You called me ‘beautiful.’ _You opened up to me_. Ignoring me doesn't make that go away.” 

“I know. Believe me, I know.” He ducks his head, chuckling harshly and swearing. When he looks back up at her, his gaze is full of heat. No, not just heat. _Fire_.  

***

He called her beautiful. She’s _still_ beautiful. Warring for him, for something that doesn’t even exist yet between them, she’s the most stunning thing Kyle’s ever seen. Her golden skin is flushed, dark eyes lit with emotion. It’s fucking contagious, that emotion. Filling him up. Overloading his barriers. His common sense.   

One tug would bring her down into his arms. Sprawled across him for everyone to see. The primal, meat-brain part of him wants that so bad. To claim her. Make it known that Mattie Ashby is his. But a bigger, smarter, part of him recognizes the truth: that Mattie belongs only to herself. That she is worth so much more than him. That she doesn’t know what she’s asking and deserves better than the answer. So, he swings his legs to the other side of the chair, scrambles off of it and puts some distance between them.

“I can’t do this.” He closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see the hurt flashing across her pretty face, drags both hands through his hair in frustration. Forget about going to hell when he dies. He’s there right now. Burning to a crisp. “Don’t make me do this.”

“ _Make_ you? What can I possibly make you do?” Her laughter is incredulous…and still manages to sound like music. She crosses the space between them—and when he backs up, she just stalks him toward the far wall, confident in the fact that he’s not going to physically push her away. “You have all the power, don’t you? You decide to talk to me. You decide _no_ t to talk to me. You make me think we’re friends. Then you blow me off. It’s like it’s one big joke to you!”

Far from it. There is _nothing_ funny about this. Kyle clenches his fists. Digs his nails into his palms. All so he doesn’t reach for her. But it’s not his hands that betray him. It’s his tongue. And the words that spill from it before he can bite them back.

“You think this is easy for me, Matilda? Staying away from you? Jesus Christ, I have fucked half the Eastern Seaboard and never looked back at a single hook-up. But you? I’ve barely scratched the surface with you, and I miss you like air.” 

The confession hangs there between them, suspended like time has stopped. Mattie’s lips part in shock and she huffs out a tiny, barely audible, “ _Oh_.”

He wants to taste that syllable, swallow that breath. He wants to disappear. This is _not_ what was supposed to happen. He was supposed to forget about her. Move on. Be responsible and adult and not some kind of sick predator getting hard for a teenager. _Go_ , he tells himself. _Get out while you still can_.

Kyle pushes off the wall. Skirts around her. And then she reaches out and catches his arm, slender fingers sliding around his biceps.

“Don’t leave.”           

It’s not a plea. It’s a command.

***

His skin is warm to the touch. A contrast of soft and firm. Like silk over steel. And still. So still. Kyle doesn’t move once she tells him to stay. He holds himself like a statue, his only motion the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes. _“I miss you like air.”_ No one’s ever said anything like that to her. And, sure, it could _totally_ be a line…but he looked so stricken when the words left his lips. Horrified. It was nothing he ever wanted to admit.  

Mattie can’t help it. She slides her palm up his shoulder. Across one pectoral. He’s more beautiful than all the sculptures she saw on a trip to Rome—and he shudders under her hand. “Please.” His voice is thick, low. Gaze fixed beyond her once again…but it’s not blank. If anything, his eyes are too full of conflicting emotions. _This_ is why he’s tried so hard not to look at her. “Please let me go. Let me walk away from you.”

“I can’t.” He could push her. Easily. Shove her out of the way and get gone. It emboldens her to know that he won’t. That the last thing he wants to do is hurt her. “You already walked away from me before, and I couldn’t stand it. It made me feel awkward and wrong and stupid.”

His jaw tightens. She can just imagine the thoughts running through his head. _You’re not awkward. You’re not wrong. You’re not stupid._ Because, somehow, Kyle has always seen the best of her. He doesn’t say any of it aloud, though. Still so careful. Still trying to keep his distance, even though they’re barely inches apart. “How do you feel now?” he asks her, softly.

“Powerful.” Because she’s the one making the decisions. Setting the rules. Stretching up on her toes and meeting his eyes, seeing the truth in them.

Kyle doesn’t just miss her. He _wants_ her. Just as badly as she wants him. This thing that’s been twisting her up in her sheets at night, making her question her morals and her feminism and her belief in enthusiastic consent, is one hundred percent mutual. She doesn’t have to feel guilt for that anymore. Or shame. Just… _good_. There's nothing slutty about this. Nothing "fast." If anything, it's painfully slow. This curiosity. This _need_. So many things she wants to know. So many things she wants to _do_.  

“Can I kiss you?” she asks, tracing circles around his flat nipple, watching with wonder as it puckers. As he flinches. He's sensitive there. Sensitive to _her_.   

“You’re only 17,” he grinds out, as if this is new information. As if she didn't point out the disparity in their ages the day they met. His hands are fisted at his sides again, like he’s holding himself back from touching her. “I’m too old for you," he adds. "You should be kissing high school boys.” 

“That’s not a ‘no.’”

“ _Jesus_.”    

“Matilda,” she corrects. And then she presses her mouth to his. 

***

 _Don’t move. Don’t touch. And for the love of God, don’t kiss her back_. The warnings blare through his mind like klaxons, but they can’t drown out the feel of her. Her sweet, soft, lips. Her fingertips curling into his chest, thumb brushing across his nipple. She probably has no idea she’s doing that…and he should yank her hand away, jerk his mouth from hers, bodily pick her up and set her a good distance from him. But Kyle is drowning. He was wrong when he thought he would burn.

He expected Mattie to be tentative. Shy. She’s not. She kisses him like the teacher, not the student. Tongue teasing his lower lip, demanding entry. Left hand cupping his neck. Her whole body aligning with his. _Powerful_ , she said. And that power is washing over him in waves, dragging him under again and again. He’s the adult here. He needs to stop this. He _will_ stop this. But first he sinks deeper, damns himself just a little more. He opens his mouth and lets her in.

It’s maybe thirty seconds tops. Hot, rough, frantic. The world’s shortest French kiss. His cruelest indulgence. Because now he knows how she tastes—like sunshine and warmth and peaches—and he’s going to take that with him when he leaves. When he books an open-ended ticket for New York and gets the hell out of town for a while.     

Mattie will think it’s cowardice. Kyle knows it’s the bravest, strongest, thing he can do for her. For them both. He never should’ve started this, but he can end it before it goes any further.

“ _Fuck_ , I am so sorry,” he whispers as he pulls back from her.

“I’m not.” The matter-of-fact reply and accompanying shrug startle a laugh out of him. She’s…radiant. Eyes shining. Lips wet and swollen from their kiss. She looks like she could, and would, take on anything. Fight all his battles. Slay all his dragons. Convince him they should be together, consequences be damned.

What kind of man would he be if he allowed that? According to the state of Wisconsin, a statutory rapist. According to his own conscience, a man who doesn’t love her enough to set her free.

Kyle indulges himself just one more time. Leaning into her. Breathing her in. Lightly kissing her temple. “Goodbye, Matilda,” he sighs against her satin skin.

He grabs his things and exits the roof deck without a backward glance. This time, the effort to not-look doesn’t hurt a bit.

After all, it’s pretty difficult to feel pain when you’ve torn out your heart and left it behind.     

***

He’s not walking way this time. He’s running. She knew that even before he apologized. Before he said goodbye. She felt it in how he kissed her when he finally let himself react. It was—it _is_ —the best kiss she’s experienced in her life. Full of everything he couldn’t say. Everything he’s denying himself. Everything he’s denying her. _Passion. Desperation. Devotion._

Mattie stays on the GCAC roof long after Kyle’s gone. She gets her Kindle and curls up in his lounge chair, finishes the cocktail he left untouched. She pushes aside the feelings of rejection, of loss, of promise unfulfilled. None of that matters. Not after today. Not after what she’s learned.      

Kyle Abbott just cannot be around her…because he’s as obsessed with her as she is with him. Because he cares about her. Because he can’t bear to hurt her.

Because this might be love.

 

 

\--end--

 


End file.
